Mtg arena open beta

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me_in_japan
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Tue Aug 23, 2022 3:24 am

Good to see you back in the water, chief. I've been playing a wee bit. Like, maybe once a week or so? I have it on my phone, so I play when I'm waiting in the car for the kids to finish their swimming lesson and suchlike. I've mostly been playing historic brawl and draft. I think I made it to level 50 or so last season, which is ok, I guess.

I'm enjoying the dominaria story, although you'd think a company the size of Hasbro could afford some decent writers. Or even proofreaders. But eh, I like reading stories about places and characters I'm invested in. Card-wise, yay sheoldred! Phyrexians are cool, and im happy to see them. I haven't really seen much that's made me go "oooh" but I suppose that's a good thing. I'm toying with getting a box of draft cards, but thats honestly because I want to draft it, rather than wanting any specific card from the set. (Albeit I wouldn't say no to a Liliana of the Veil. I've already got a Tinybones and a Tergrid, and am resisting the push to make a discard commander deck, cos it'd be miserable.)

Oh, and the stained glass lands are purty, but not as enticing as the seb McKinnon lands, which I'm absolutely going to get and alter into full arts.
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Wow. And then Corona happened. Just....crickets, all the way through to 2023...

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Primarch
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Thu Oct 06, 2022 3:18 am

Ooh, looks like we're getting more Remastered cards next year.


Also 30th Anniversary, WTF??$$$$$
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Thu Oct 06, 2022 10:37 am

Oooh, that 30th anniversary thing :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Seriously, there aren't enough laugh emojis in the world to convey my disdain for that product.**

I see they're doing Shadows over Innistrad for arena later on. That's actually quite good news, as it's one of my favourite sets, as well as being the one that got me back into magic after a bit of a hiatus post lorwyn. I'll be able to build my angry avacyn commander deck, too, which is nice. I bet they cut Emrakul*, though :cry:

How have you been doing with Dominaria? Playing it much?

*I just don't see how they can implement "gain control of target player"

** In a slightly more thoughtful analysis, I've seen a lot of pushback online about the 30th anniv release. It's been even more negative than the reaction to the double-rare-cost for historic wildcards on arena, or, I dunno, fortnite secret lairs. I don't think I've seen any responses other than scathing hatred of the concept. It'll be interesting to see if WotC addresses it at all. Probably won't, but if they do it'll be interesting.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Thu Oct 06, 2022 3:31 pm

Yeah, I figured you'd be excited about Innistrad. :D
If Emrakul is in the set, it is pretty much a win condition on its own, right? With only two players, there is no way to remove the effect.

I've been playing some Dominaria, about 7 or 8 Quick Drafts so far. It's okay I guess. There is some useful stuff for my Brawl and Historic decks in the set. I never play Standard, so Draft is my only real interaction with most of the cards.

The 30th anniversary set was quite an emotional roller coaster ride. I felt really nostalgic when I first saw them, then really shocked when I first looked at the price,$1000 for the set! WOW! And then stunned disbelief when I realized what $1000 actually buys you. Like a card you can discard to exile and then cast for a lower cost, it's Madness I tell you, sheer madness.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Sat Feb 25, 2023 8:12 am

Okay, it looks like someone at WotC decided to open up the throttle and give it some gas.

ONE released on Feb 10th,

Innistrad will release on March 21st

March of the Machines on April 18th,

Aftermath on May 9th (it's only 50 cards, but still).

LotR on June 20th.

That's a full set (bar Aftermath) a month, which is pretty overwhelming unless you have a couple of thousand wildcards sitting in your account, or a credit card with no limits.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Sat Feb 25, 2023 2:56 pm

I hadn't actually considered things from the Arena perspective, but aye - you're right. That's a ton of cards in a very short time. Eh, I've kind of given up on keeping up with Magic these days. I mean, I'm still very into it - I'm playing arena frequently and even some EDH here in Tsu with Jesse and a couple other guys from time to time. But after the Magic 30th debacle, followed by the absolutely risible attitude of Chris Cocks in that "fireside chat", I've kind of stopped trying to get the necessaries from each set. I'll play drafts on Arena, and pick up some singles from paper sets if they're within budget and have clear utility in my decks, but other than that, so far as I'm concerned, cards are coming out so often it's a mug's game trying to keep up.

It's just terrible behaviour by Wizards, and in teh short term it'll make em money, but in the long term will be either terrible (losing money, and lead to changes in WotC management) or really terrible (and make lots of money by alienating most of their long term customers while pulling in a bunch of new whales, thus reestablishing MtG as a "collectible" rather than a game.)
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Wed Mar 15, 2023 1:46 pm

So, I was wondering what your thoughts were on various recent magic stuffs. Like, the LotR spoilers...
https://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-set/th ... dle-earth/

fwiw, I reckon:
the lands are nice. Perhaps a tad tricky to differentiate across the table, but meh, its a cool idea and I like it.
gandalf is a bit...zappy? for a gandalf. But again, meh, I'll let it slide.
The one ring is interesting. I do loooooove the fact that they've made a limited print run, 001 of 001 of the one ring in Tengwar. Just on principle, thats cool. It's also nice to see the buy-a-box promos being useful, kinda pricey cards for a change. That said, the cost of an actual box is so frickin ridiculous, its just a bloody well they've put decent cards in.

I'm actually getting quite hyped about SoI Remastered over on Arena. Avacyn! Gisa and Geralf! Emrakul! The gang's all here, and I'm super happy to fill my decks with more Innistrad fun. If by "fun" you mean: zombies and mad angels. But yeah, a lot of my paper decks have a lot of SoI stuff in them, so I'm looking forward to making Arena versions of them. Incidentally, my current fun deck in Arena is Halana and Alena, Partners. I'm actually playing Gruul stompy and liking it! :o

Finally, I got my hands on a Compleat Bundle (ordered it months ago as a pre-christmas present for 8800 yen, which at current prices is very good). I havent opened my boosters yet, but holy macaroni those oil slick foil lands are nooooooiiiiice. (see the video link below the photo to see the full effect. I don't have a phyrexian deck, but these come damn close to making me want one.)


Image
https://imgur.com/a/puuKmA1
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Wow. And then Corona happened. Just....crickets, all the way through to 2023...

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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by Primarch » Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:49 am

My thoughts on LotR in MtG? No, I do not like it. Don't get me wrong, I like LotR and MtG, I just have no desire to see them in the same setting. We aren't far away from a game that sees Gandalf driving Optimus Prime while wielding a lightsaber being blocked by Abaddon the Despoiler and Bart Simpson, but then the Gandalf player flashes in Spongebob and their opponent counters with an instant that summons a bunch of 1/1 My Little Ponies. At some point this stops being Magic and starts being an 11-year olds fanfic.
Something like this.

As for the One Ring promo, that seems like a bad idea to me. Unless it is opened on day one, it is going to drive up prices on boosters as LotR fans will want it as well as the usual Magic investors/whales. Also, imagine it ends up in a landfill somewhere like some of WotC's products sometimes do. On the other hand, if you do pull it from a booster you get to choose between having the most collectible card of all time or paying off your mortgage.

SoI sounds awesome though, especially as there are original Innistrad block cards in the packets too. I'm somewhat disappointed in the pre-order bundle, I would have preferred more boosters and less draft tokens, but I'm still stoked for the release, especially because my painting challenge ends the day before and I will finally have free time to actually play Arena. Yay.

Also, Gruul stompy is the bomb. Turning creatures sideways is waaaay more fun than just countering everything your opponent tries to do. :lol:

Those foils are very pretty. Sadly physical MtG product is outside my budget these days and WotC isn't helping.
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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:13 pm

re universes becrossinover, I'm at a point where I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. I agree wholeheartedly about the horrible potential in a deck composed of everything everywhere all at once, but honestly I don't see myself ever coming up against it*. My kids have 40k decks, which remain unaltered from their base state. Other than that I have some secret lair cards in my regular decks, but they're either all actual mtg artists doing alt art, or vallejo stuff, which fits fine, basically. Oh, and fortnite, but I consciously put that in for the shiggles. I don't know anyone who would be likely to build a deck that featured UB stuff prominently, so I just tend to consider it its own thing and assess it on those merits. Like, LotR stuff mixed with magic stuff = bad. LotR only? That's fine. Good, even. Kinda like a spin-off game in its own right. Sean has some transformers cards that he pulled from BRO packs, but he just looked at them, said "meh" and stored them away. No mess, no fuss. That's pretty much how I view most UB cards.

Also, that was a good song you linked to. :lol:

I see The One Ring promo as being harmless marketing. To the average player, it may as well not exist, since the odds of pulling it are so low as to be practically nonexistent. It won't drive prices up, btw, it'll drive them down. That's how super rare chase cards work. More people want it, more people crack packs. The supply of everything that isnt The One Ring increases, which brings prices for those cards down. Now, to be fair, the price for packs for the LotR set is high, but I feel that's just Hasbro pushing the envelope (again) and isnt tied to the existence of the one ring promo. Much the same applies to Commander Masters, a product I should theoretically be stoked for, but having seen the price figured "that's not for me" and am just ignoring from here on in.

after your painting is done, do you fancy some games on Arena? It's been a while...

*here is that deck in use, btw. The world can blame Gavin Verhey for bringing it into reality...
current (2019) hobby interests
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Wow. And then Corona happened. Just....crickets, all the way through to 2023...

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Re: Mtg arena open beta

Post by me_in_japan » Wed Mar 22, 2023 3:24 am

I wrote:*I just don't see how they can implement "gain control of target player"
huh. Turns out they thought so, too. Gawd bless coding minion Andy Reiff, I guess ;)

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-a ... -it-anyway
current (2019) hobby interests
eh, y'know. Stuff, and things

Wow. And then Corona happened. Just....crickets, all the way through to 2023...

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